Thomas C. Oden 
How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind [EPUB ebook] 
Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christianity

Africa has played a decisive role in the formation of Christian culture from its infancy. Some of the most decisive intellectual achievements of Christianity were explored and understood in Africa before they were in Europe.If this is so, why is Christianity so often perceived in Africa as a Western colonial import? How can Christians in Northern and sub-Saharan Africa, indeed, how can Christians throughout the world, rediscover and learn from this ancient heritage?Theologian Thomas C. Oden offers a portrait that challenges prevailing notions of the intellectual development of Christianity from its early roots to its modern expressions. The pattern, he suggests, is not from north to south from Europe to Africa, but the other way around. He then makes an impassioned plea to uncover the hard data and study in depth the vital role that early African Christians played in developing the modern university, maturing Christian exegesis of Scripture, shaping early Christian dogma, modeling conciliar patterns of ecumenical decision-making, stimulating early monasticism, developing Neoplatonism, and refining rhetorical and dialectical skills.He calls for a wide-ranging research project to fill out the picture he sketches. It will require, he says, a generation of disciplined investigation, combining intensive language study with a risk-taking commitment to uncover the truth in potentially unreceptive environments. Oden envisions a dedicated consortium of scholars linked by computer technology and a common commitment that will seek to shape not only the scholar's understanding but the ordinary African Christian's self-perception.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction

Toward a Half Billion African Christians

An Epic Story

Out of Africa

The Pivotal Place of Africa on the Ancient Map

Two Rivers: The Nile and the Medjerda–Seedbed of Early Christian Thought

Affirming Oral and Written Traditions

Self-Effacement and the Recovery of Dignity

The Missing Link: The Early African Written Intellectual Tradition Forgotten

Why Africa Has Seemed to the West to Lack Intellectual History

Interlude
Part One: The African Seedbed of Western Christianity
1 A Forgotten Story

Who Can Tell It?

Pilgrimage Sites Neglected

Under Sands: The Burial of Ancient Christian Texts and Basilicas
2 Seven Ways Africa Shaped the Christian Mind

How the Western Idea of a University Was Born in the Crucible of Africa

How Christian Exegesis of Scripture First Matured in Africa

How African Sources Shaped Early Christian Dogma

How Early Ecumenical Decision Making Followed African Conciliar Patterns

How the African Desert Gave Birth to Worldwide Monasticism

How Christian Neoplatonism Emerged in Africa

How Rhetorical and Dialectical Skills Were Refined in Africa and Introduced to Europe

Interlude: Harnack?s Folly

Overview
3 Defining Africa

Establishing the Indigenous Depth of Early African Christianity

The Stereotyping of Hellenism as Non-African

Scientific Inquiry into the Ethnicity of Early African Christian Writers

The Purveyors of Myopia

The African-Priority Hypothesis Requires Textual Demonstration

The South-to-North Hypothesis

A Case in Point: The Circuitous Path from Africa to Ireland to Europe and Then Back to Africa

A Caveat Against Afrocentric Exaggeration
4 One Faith, Two Africas

The Hazards of Bridge Building

The Challenge of Reconciliation of Black Africa and North Africa

Overcoming the Ingrained Lack of Awareness

The Roots of the Term Africa

Excommunicating the North

Arguing for African Unity

Defining ‚Early African Christianity‘ as a Descriptive Category of a Period of History

How African Is the Nile Valley?
5 Temptations

The Emerging Task of Historical Inquiry

The Catholic Limits of Afrocentrism

The Inflexible Habit of Ignoring African Sources

The Cost of the Forgetfulness

Overlooking African Voices Already Present in Scripture

How Protestants Can Celebrate the Apostolic Charisma of the Copts

The Christian Ancestry of Africa
Part Two: African Orthodox Recovery
6 The Opportunity for Retrieval

Surviving Modernity

The Steadiness of African Orthodoxy

The New African Ecumenism

Pruning Undisciplined Excesses

Burning the Acids of Moral Relativism

Orthodoxy: Global and African

Historic Christian Multiculturalism

Reframing Modern Ecumenics Within Classic Ecumenics
7 How the Blood of African Martyrs Became the Seed of European Christianity

Whether Classic Christian Teaching Is Defined by Power

How the History of African Martyrdom Shaped Christian Views of Universal History

Recalling the Exodus as an African Event

Amassing the Evidence

The Challenge of Young Africa
8 Right Remembering

Remembering the Scripture Rightly Through the Spirit

The Heart of African Orthodoxy

Transcending Material Worldliness

Avoiding Racial Definitions of Apostolic Truth
9 Reshaping the Relation of Christianity and Islam Through Historical Insight

The Risks Scholars Take

Empathizing With Sub-Saharan Suspicions of the North

Conjointly Studying the History of Islam and Christianity

The Rigorous Language Requirements of African Research

Arabic Christian Studies

Learning from Primary Sources
Appendix: The Challenges of Early African Research

Three Aims of Future Research

The Precedent

The Scope

The African Center of the International Consortium

The Consortium of Scholars

Assembling the Pieces of the Puzzle

Academic Leadership

Maximizing Digital Technologies

Publishing Outcomes

Conclusion
Literary Chronology of Christianity in Africa in the First Millennium
Bibliography

Über den Autor

Thomas C. Oden (1931–2016) was a pioneering theologian and served as the architect and general editor for the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, the first full-scale early Christian commentary on Scripture in the last five hundred years. He was also the general editor of the Ancient Christian Doctrine series and the Ancient Christian devotionals, as well as a consulting editor for the Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity. Oden's self-described mission was ‚to begin to prepare the postmodern Christian community for its third millennium by returning again to the careful study and respectful following of the central tradition of classical Christianity.‘ A prolific writer and seasoned teacher, Oden also served as the director of the Center for Early African Christianity at Eastern University in Pennsylvania, and was active in the Confessing Movement in America, particularly within the United Methodist Church.